Netherlands Experience for the Development of Ukraine: Professor Sibe Schaap's Meeting with Students of the Faculty for Humanities and Pedagogics of NULES of Ukraine

On February 20, 2020, well-known Dutch philosopher and politician Sibe Schaap gave a lecture to international students and graduate students at the Department of Philosophy at the Faculty for Humanities and Pedagogics. He currently teaches philosophy at the Free University of Amsterdam and Charles University in Prague. Mr. Schaap himself is the author of many philosophy books that have been translated into German, Russian and Ukrainian. In addition to his philosophical work, he is a chairman of the Water Committee of the Netherlands and the Committee on Genetic Modification, a senator and Member of the Netherlands Parliament of the Liberal Party, the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy.

Professor Schaap sees great potential in Ukraine's agro-sphere, and he dedicated his report to this issue. The lecturer revealed the success story of the Netherlands, which began seventy years ago, during a difficult post-war period. At that time, the state developed two recovery concepts: step-by-step reforms and comprehensive cooperation. The government initiated the reforms. The formula for the success of the Netherlands is this algorithm: first, agrarian institutions are created, then applied science is developed, then the laws on industry reform are implemented, and finally foreign markets are opened and partnerships with other countries are strengthened.

The Dutch experience has convinced the audience that the development of agrarian education is one of the most important factors in the cultural and economic development of the country. According to the lecturer, increasing the level of not only professional but also philosophical competence of the agricultural sector employees, which contributes to the destruction of outdated mental stereotypes and counteracts inertia, plays a huge role in the process of society's development. Competition and cooperation, persistence and consistency are important for the successful development of the Ukrainian agricultural sector. But, Professor Schaap believes, first of all, we must start with education and science, which must necessarily include both applied and fundamental components. Business is interested in the development of applied sciences, so it will support them. The basic sciences, undoubtedly, need public funding.

The lecturer stressed that Ukraine is worthy to enter into a single European space. The main thing is to start working hard, consistently implement reforms, overcome corruption, focus on strong competitors. After all, the essence of competition – In the common development, if one becomes stronger, then the other must respond to it.

Students and graduate students had a great opportunity to ask questions of the state maker and the reformer. They were interested in various aspects of his professional career, from education and science to genetic modification and environmental issues in the modern world. Finally, Mr. Schaap wished Ukraine not to be afraid of problems – they should be taken as new challenges.

It should be noted that students, graduate students and professors of the Faculty for Humanities and Pedagogics demonstrated not only a broad knowledge of current socio-political problems, but also a sufficiently high level of command of foreign languages, because the lectures and discussions were in English.

This once again convincingly demonstrated that the activity of our faculty is aimed at training specialists of the European level of education.

Kateryna Solodka,
student of 2 cours of speciality «Intrnational relations»

Valentyna Kultenko,
associate professor of philosophy department
of Faculty for humanities and pedagogics